


Becoming Yuri Plisetsky

by lovelyroses



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Backstory, Coming of Age, Family Issues, Pre-Canon, Trans Male Character, Trans Yuri Plisetsky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-07 02:30:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13424832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyroses/pseuds/lovelyroses
Summary: There are so many things the public doesn't know about Yuri Plisetsky. One of which is that he's trans. Mostly, this is because all he wanted was to be seen as a boy. But now he feels people deserve to know.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, for some reason, I've always had this headcanon of Yuri being a trans boy. This is the backstory that I came up with, based on both canon information and my own ideas. Enjoy!

In March 2001, a girl (or so they thought) was born to Vera and Peter Plisetsky in Moscow. They named this child Tatiana. And as seems to be the policy with first babies, relatives fawned over the new baby, gave gifts, took pictures. Soon, the mantel was full of photos of a blonde, miserable-looking baby in several ridiculously pink, ridiculously frilly outfits. Looking back, Yuri always wondered why his mother insisted on dressing him like this. It was as if she just _had_ to tell the world her baby was a _girl._

When he was about three, his father left the family. His devastated mother felt that the toddler reminded her too much of his father and sent him to live with his grandfather. For some reason, Yuri felt safer being himself around his grandfather than he ever did with his parents. Most days, he would pick a random boys' name and tell his grandfather that that was what he wanted to be called. Usually, it was the name of an actor or TV character. Of course, nobody was really reading into this, seeing as he was just a toddler. Kids play pretend all the time. But now, Yuri deduced that it was because even at that age, his given name felt wrong. One day, he and his grandfather were looking at a photo album. There was one black-and-white picture of three children (two boys, one girl).

"Who's that?" asked Yuri, pointing to one of the boys.

"Why, that was me."

"And....who's that?" He pointed to the other boy in the photo. This one was smaller, blonde, and somewhat catlike.

His grandfather paused for a second. "That.... that was my brother. His name was Yuri."

Yuri. He liked the sound of that name. And what was more, the boy in the picture looked like him. "Dedushka," he said, turning to his grandfather with a smile. "My name is Yuri now."

And this was the one name that stuck. This was just the very beginning, too. One day, when he was four, he decided he didn't want long hair anymore. So, one morning, he took a pair of kitchen scissors, and standing on a stool in front of the bathroom mirror, gave himself a haircut. He hummed to himself while cutting his hair. When he decided it was short enough, he cut his hair. Unfortunately, this meant that it was extremely uneven and, to put it lightly, looked like a rat had chewed through it. When he came out to the kitchen, grinning, his grandfather gasped.

"Notice anything different about me?" he asked.

"Yes! What happened to your hair?"

"I cut it! Does it look good?"

His grandfather paused for a second. "You didn't do a bad job. But I think you missed some spots. Maybe after breakfast, I can even it out for you."

So, after breakfast, he sat him down, grabbed a towel and kitchen scissors, and finished cutting his hair. The four-year-old swung his legs excitedly and giggled. His grandfather chuckled. "Now, now, I know you're excited, but please sit still so I can cut your hair properly."

When he was done with his grandson's hair, he handed him a mirror. Yuri squealed happily. His hair finally looked right! "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" he squealed, hugging his grandfather. "Any time, Yurachka," said Nikolai.

Flash forward a year and a half later. After watching the 2006 Winter Olympics, Yuri had picked up an interest in figure skating and wanted to learn how to skate himself. Ever since the Olympics ended, it was all he could talk about. His grandfather, just wanting his grandson to be happy, decided to look into ice skating lessons. Unfortunately, the best option happened to be in St. Petersburg, a nine-hour drive away, at best. He thought about this for a long time before coming to the conclusion that unless he wanted to make the commute there every day (which he didn't), they would have to move over there.

Later that month, the two moved to St. Petersburg. Nikolai had settled an agreement with Yuri's mother that they would come to Moscow to visit her during the holidays. Unfortunately, Yuri was enrolled in skating lessons (and eventually in primary school) as a girl, but upon arriving, he immediately told Yakov and everyone else to call him Yuri. Yakov, Mila, Victor, and Georgi were a bit confused at first, but they figured it was some nickname and just went with it. Unfortunately, his teachers at school did not respect his wishes, explaining that they had "no time" to learn nicknames. So every day at school, the teachers called him Tatiana, and every time, he bristled. Visits with his mother were even worse, unfortunately. She still called him Tatiana, despite him asking her not to, and she tried to get him to wear dresses every time they went out. When she introduced him to people, she said, "This is my daughter, Tatiana." He couldn't yet describe what it was that made him feel bad whenever she did that, but it made visiting her absolute hell.

As he grew older, he tried to focus more on skating because it helped take the edge off. He thought that if he couldn't be himself anywhere else, at least he could be himself on the ice. One day, though, when he was ten, he was visiting his mother. In one of their many talks about "girly" subjects, she said in a whisper, "I think you need a training bra."

"Mama," groaned Yuri.

"That's just a fact of life for a woman. Now we're going shopping. Put on something more feminine."

Thus began a humiliating shopping trip. When his mother was done picking out training bras, she left him in the fitting room to try some of them on. In the fitting room, he stared into the mirror on the verge of tears. "If I'm not a girl, who am I?" he asked himself. "Who am I?"

When he was dropped off back home, he immediately went up to his room.

"Yuratchka? What happened?"

"Nothing!" he called.

"I don't feel well. I just want to be alone!"

"Alright! Come down when you're ready!"

As he changed his clothes and flopped down onto his bed, he thought, long and hard. "I guess I'm a boy," he muttered to himself.

Later that evening, he came downstairs to the smell of his grandfather cooking dinner. "Are you feeling better?"

He shrugged. "I guess.""Do you think you'll be well enough to eat?"

"Oh, of course!" He _lived_ for his grandfather's pirozhkis. "Dedushka, wait."

His grandfather turned around. "Yes?"

"I have something important to tell you." He pointed to his hair and clothes. "This whole thing? It isn't just a phase. I'm not a tomboy. I'm.... I'm a boy."

Nikolai thought about this. This would certainly explain some things, like how he bristled at being called Tatiana. "That's alright. If you're a boy, you're a boy."

"Thank you, Dedushka."

"So how was the visit?"

"Horrible." He paused. He wasn't sure if he wanted to discuss shopping for training bras with his  _grandfather_. "I don't want to go into detail, but it was.... worse than usual."

His grandfather nodded.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, sorry it took me so long to update!

Now the next step was coming out to those who knew him. School definitely wouldn't accept him, but he thought skate practice would. So one day, he told his coach he was a boy and to treat him as such. Then he told his teammates. There was no adjustment, no difficulty. They used his preferred name and pronouns with ease. When he finished primary school a few months later, it was a relief because then he could start over with a clean slate. His grandfather enrolled him as a boy and with the name Yuri. At school, he didn't have any friends, but as he was getting further into figure skating and starting to train more seriously (often missing school for competitions), he didn't think he had time for friends, anyway.

As for the visits with his mother, he and his grandfather (unofficially) discontinued them. They both knew nothing good was going to come out of those visits, so why bother wasting perfectly good birthdays and school breaks? Besides, holidays with his grandfather were the _best!_ On New Year's, rather than just putting the presents under the tree, Nikolai would hide the presents in different places and leave clues so Yuri would have to find them himself. It was a little bit like a scavenger hunt. But the last present was _always_ the best one, and _always_ under the tree. "From  _Ded Moroz,_ " Nikolai would say. 

"Sure, Deda," laughed Yuri, rolling his eyes.

Then when he was done opening presents, the two would make breakfast and then sit down to eat it. And in the afternoon, they'd go sledding.

Unfortunately, the whole training bra incident was still in Yuri's brain. Every day when he got dressed, his growing chest was painfully obvious to him. He was afraid that this was completely irreversible and he was doomed to be female (which to him meant enduring his mother nagging him about how he was "becoming a woman"). In an attempt to hide this, he wore baggy shirts. This seemed to work for him for about a year, which was when he got _really_ scared. So in addition to the baggy shirts, he wore two sports bras every day, _at the same time._ When changing in the boys' locker room at school, he always changed quickly and in a corner so people wouldn't see the sports bras.

As always, on the ice, he felt free. He had a group of people who respected him. He looked up to Victor, who skated beautifully, effortlessly, as if it was no big deal. Currently, he was training for the 2014 Olympics! Yuri wanted to be like him when he grew up. No. _Better_ than him.

As he got into the thick of competition, he became loud-mouthed and aggressively competitive. He was shorter than a lot of the boys he was competing against, but his size didn't matter. He would stop at nothing to intimidate them. First, there was the death stare. Then, usually before they went on the ice, he'd tell them, "You can't win this. I'm better than you."

Nobody read into this the first few times because banter was common among the younger boys. But it got to the point where he was swearing at his competition and calling them rude names. Yakov would usually have to pull him aside at that point and tell him, very bluntly, to cut that shit out. And Yuri would respond by rolling his eyes. "I'm not a little kid anymore, Yakov," he'd sigh.

"Well, if you're not, then don't act like one. Got it?"

"Got it."

He always scored very well in these competitions, and once, when he stepped off the ice, he overheard someone say, "This boy might go to the Olympics!"

_That's right,_ thought Yuri. _One day, I'll be in the Olympics, on the podium, with a gold medal!_

In his book, it was "go big or go home", and he wasn't going home. The best day of his life happened when he was twelve (nearly thirteen) and he landed his first quad. It was during a local competition. He figured he'd watched the older skaters do quads enough times, and it looked easy to him. The landing was shaky, but at least he landed on his feet. _Yes! Yes! Yes!_ Unfortunately, his celebration was short-lived because afterwards, Yakov berated him. Yuri zoned out through the whole lecture, but he got something like, "Don't do quads.....blah blah blah....it's dangerous......blah blah blah......"

Luckily, Victor (read: his hero) intervened and agreed to choreograph him a routine for his senior debut _if_ he won the Junior Grand Prix without doing quads. He was _elated_ at this prospect! He would get to train under arguably the best skater in Europe!

As they left the arena, Nikolai told his grandson he was proud of him, as always. But he noticed that Yuri seemed..... _happy_. This was good, because these days, he had been very withdrawn and upset for some reason. "Are you proud of yourself?"

"Yes."

"Good! You should be. You did an amazing job, Yuri."

"Thank you, Deda."

In the car, he told him about his interaction with Victor. "Is that so, Yurochka?"

"Yes! I can't believe it!"

But as they approached home, he felt something dripping. _Uh-oh_ , he thought. Then he told himself, _Stay calm, Yuri, we can see what it is when we get home._ So at home, in the bathroom, he saw the dark liquid staining his underwear. _Blyad._ He immediately knew what it was, and he had to remind himself to stay calm. _It's okay, Yuri, it's okay._ He changed his underwear and lined the clean pair with toilet paper. _I'll just go to the drugstore and buy myself some pads._

So he went downstairs, his wallet in his pocket, and said, "Deda, I'm going to the store. I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Alright, Yuri, just be careful when you cross that street."

"I will, don't worry."

At the drugstore, he could barely conceal his embarrassment. He was worried about what people would think if they saw him buying "feminine products". God, that term just made him bristle. _I am not a girl. I am_ not _a girl._ He picked out a box of pads and paid for it quickly, not even bothering to look at the clerk. Then he stuffed it in his coat and dashed across the street.

Over the next five days, he wondered if he should tell his grandfather. But he decided against it, out of embarrassment. His grandfather didn't get those! In fact, he didn't know any other boys who got them.

A month later, the blood came again. This time, it was heavier. Which he found out the hard way. At school one day, he felt sticky. But because it was the middle of an assembly, he decided he'd attend to it later. Then at the end of the assembly, he stood up, and a boy behind him whispered, "Yuri, I think you might have sat in something."

"Why do you think that?"

"There's a red spot on the back of your pants."

_Goddamn it,_ he thought. He tied his sweatshirt around his waist and asked his teacher to be excused to the nurse's office. Once given permission, he ran like hell, hoping nobody would see his hot tears of embarrassment and anger. _Why is this happening to me?_

In the nurse's office, he went into the bathroom and changed pads. Then he came out and told the nurse he didn't feel good. So she motioned for him to lie down on the cot. "Would you like me to call your grandfather?" 

_Please,_ he thought. "Yes, please."

"Alright." She smiled sweetly and pushed a trash can towards him. "Get some rest."

He lay there, waiting for his grandfather to show up and save the situation. To make this horrible day just a little bit better. Whenever he was sick, his grandfather always took care of him. He made him his favorite soup, propped up the pillows, brought him his favorite books, stroked his hair. When he had a sore throat, his grandfather had him drink a concoction of beets and vinegar that the boy found utterly vile, but it always worked. Right now, he wanted soup, his favorite books, and to be tucked under the covers. Just then, a familiar voice said, "Yuri?"

He looked up. It was his grandfather. _Thank God._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Fun fact: in Russia, most people don't really celebrate Christmas. New Year's is a really big deal, though, and the way it's celebrated is very similar to Christmas in the rest of the world. 
> 
> **For those who don't know, "blyad" is the Russian equivalent of "fuck".
> 
> I hope you guys liked this! So far, writing this has been really cathartic, and I hope to do more!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this! This is my first fic on here, so sorry if I don't know the format too well! There's going to be another chapter to this, I promise!


End file.
